Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

This was a time when the very word “America” had a glamor that is simply impossible to imagine today. Once before, Hiroshi had been posted overseas, to Hong Kong for two years, but when that happened Harue had used Primavera to beg off going with him. When talk of Takero’s going to Sapporo first came up, she joined Natsue in asking indignantly, “What about Primavera?” But no sooner did she get wind of the move to New York than she made up her mind to quit the business, leaving it in the hands of her best pupil, the young woman who sat at the children’s table when I first met the Saegusas and who occasionally visited them in Karuizawa.

One Sunday morning near Christmas, matters resolved themselves, as Natsue told her husband she would go with him. Takero beamed with pleasure.

“Primavera has fulfilled its historical mission ,” he said, using the English phrase.

“What does that mean?” she asked, so he repeated it in Japanese.

This was just when Japan was entering a period of rapid economic growth, and department store racks were lined with stylish clothes produced in bulk at affordable prices. The next day Natsue repeated her husband’s remark to me. “It’s true,” she said, “Primavera has fulfilled its historical mission .” It amused me that she found saying it in English more persuasive. To me the words seemed to apply to my own life as well.

“So he’s going to be a full professor.” Mrs. Utagawa expressed pleasure at the news before adding wistfully, “I would have liked to go to Sapporo too.”

At the start of the new year, 1964, Dr. Matsumiya predicted that her end would be quick, but she held on over a month longer. Her death came in early February. When they interred her cremated remains in Kichijoji, Taro was allowed to go along.

No one was thinking about Yoko. Everyone just took it for granted that she would simply accompany her parents north. Only when another professor who had made the same switch of universities—and had pushed hard for Takero’s promotion—mentioned that Fuji Girls’ High School would be a good choice did they take the younger child into consideration. “That’s right! Something must be done about a high school for Yoko.” Takero went with her for the entrance exam, using it as an opportunity to scout for a house to rent. The ferry between Aomori and Hakodate alone took four hours, and that was after a twenty-one-hour train ride from Tokyo. When Yoko got back, she was limp and gray with exhaustion.

Only she and I know how devastated Taro was by the news. As the day of departure drew near, even she was increasingly somber, and when her mother wasn’t watching she would slip out to the back yard to exchange a few words with him, even at night. Unlike most boys, once he started crying Taro had a hard time stopping, a trait she usually found exasperating—but now that they faced separation, for once she was patient and consoling.

The Utagawas left for Sapporo in time for the start of the school year in April. Taro secretly tagged along as far as Ueno station. I saw his face peering out from behind a distant column, looking like death. Yoko seemed not to notice. She was an ungovernable child, and if she had spotted him there’s no telling what she might have done amid the crowd of people there to see the family off, so I pretended not to see him.

Taro successfully entered Shinjuku Municipal High School. This must have irked his brothers no end, as both had joined the workforce straight out of middle school. But Takero, as head of the Utagawa family, had handed their father a full year’s school fees in a lump sum, including the cost of commuting, and he also had authority as their landlord, so Mr. Azuma made them simmer down.

I GOT MARRIED. Starting with the fish seller, I had had my share of proposals, including one from an office worker in a business suit, but I turned them all down until, before I knew it, I was all of twenty-seven, well past the usual marrying age in those days. I had been with the Utagawas going on eleven years, ever since I was seventeen. The family did show some concern, but I was good at making myself useful, and besides, I always made a face when the subject of marriage came up, which was how I had managed to stay single so long. Now, however, postponing matrimony any longer would have obliged the Utagawas to take me with them to Sapporo, since they were unwilling to leave me on my own in Tokyo and I would not hear of going back to Saku. Taking me along would probably have meant looking after me for the rest of my life, a considerable financial burden—not to mention the additional burden of knowing that being in their employ had made me miss my chance at marriage. Times had changed after the war, and neither responsibility was one that any family would have been comfortable taking on. Once it was settled that they were all going to Sapporo, they began to ask around on my behalf.

“Fumiko would make any man a superb wife!”

Left to myself, I would rather not have married at all. After over a decade with the same family, I was not the same Fumiko who had first come here from the country. The sort of man I would have liked to marry—the sort whose company I might have enjoyed—would not have given me a second glance. Even if a likely mate did exist somewhere out there, what chance did I have of meeting him? I was never one to paint a rosy picture of marriage to begin with, but the older I became and the more I understood of life, the less romantic I was. Rather than marry, I would have preferred to make a go of it alone in Tokyo, even if that meant just scraping by. But my refusing to marry at that late date would only have caused a problem for the Utagawas, and that I couldn’t allow. Whether marriage offers are generally available for the asking, or whether this one came along purely by chance, I don’t know, but a suitable offer did come along quite quickly.

He was a company employee three years older than me. Dr. Matsumiya down by the station had seen the way I looked after old Mrs. Utagawa, and he recommended me to a frequent visitor to his clinic as soon as he heard from Natsue that they were on the lookout for a husband for me. The man in question had graduated from high school in Chiba and was working for a fairly large pharmaceutical company. Just his being an office worker was enough to make him good husband material by the standards of the day, and for someone without a college education he had a very promising future, having caught the boss’s eye, apparently. Moreover, his people ran a futon store in Kashiwa, and his elder brother and sister-in-law were living with his parents and would eventually take over the business, so there would be few if any in-law problems for me to worry about. On top of it all, he was good-looking, not slow-witted, and well-spoken. I suppose because he was involved in sales, he had a smooth, persuasive way of talking. Anybody could see he was too good a match for someone like me. The only problem was that I myself wasn’t particularly drawn to him, nor was there any apparent reason why he should find me to his liking. Thinking about it later, I could see that not knowing why in the world he would choose me did secretly bother me from the start. I decided to go ahead with the marriage anyway, partly because I felt obliged to marry quickly and partly because he seemed like someone I could introduce to the Saegusa sisters without embarrassment. I must admit I had my share of vanity. However strongly I felt I owed it to the Utagawas to marry, I entered the marriage with shallow motives.

Things moved along at quite a clip. The matter was settled while Mrs. Utagawa was still alive, so I had my hands full. By then she was as willful as a child, and some days her mind was unclear, but when I reported to her that I was now engaged, she sounded like her old self. “I see,” she said. “Congratulations.” Then, in a phlegmy voice, staring up at the ceiling, she asked, “Do you have enough money saved up?”